Deveney goes on:

Brown showed him his conference speech at various stages and Campbell gave ideas, some of which were accepted and some rejected. Just as he used to do with Blair. "Just as Tony had a group of people, one removed, whom he could talk to, Gordon will sometimes phone up and say, 'I've been trying to get this point over about such and such, can you have a think about it?' I might think about a line or an idea for a speech or a visit."

She then tangles with him over the psychological flaws. Campbell says:

"I had a golden rule that I didn't brief against ministers. People just don't want to believe that." Yet Campbell is reputed to have once told the respected political journalist Andrew Rawnsley that Brown was "psychologically flawed". "No, I didn't. It's no secret I whacked into Charlie Whelan [Brown's press secretary] from time to time but I did not describe Gordon as psychologically flawed."

Deveney then comments:

He's an interesting man, Campbell. Direct. Apparently open. You almost believe him when he denies calling Brown flawed. But Rawnsley confirmed in print last year that Campbell had said it. "Did he?" says Campbell, sounding genuinely taken aback. He doesn't read the papers any more. "That's news to me."

It was news to me too, so I checked, and Rawnsley did not confirm it, despite at one stage promising to name his sources when Tony Blair ceased to be prime minister. In his review of Campbell's diaries for The Observer on 15 July last year, Rawnsley said this:

We get dark hints about Brown's scheming, paranoia and eccentricity. “At Cabinet, GB was doodling with a big thick pencil, covering page after page with odd scribbles.” That's a wink and a nudge as to why someone with a very good claim to know the mind of Blair famously told me that he thought Brown had “psychological flaws”.

Deveney presses on:

Well, leaving aside whether he said it or not, does he believe it? There is a second's very telling hesitation. Then, in a moment that is pure Alastair Campbell, he smiles very charmingly and says, "We're all psychologically flawed."